When you meet people or make new friends you create your own understanding of them. You have no prior knowledge of them, and more often than not you start at a neutral ground working onwards with the first impression.
If the first time you met and that person made you smile, you seemed to get along, the prospect of hanging out with them or being friends with them seems refreshing, worthwhile and welcoming. On the other hand, if they rubbed you the wrong way the first time, there is a high possibility there wont be a next time unless of course there is no choice.
And then there is a third case. A case where you have your impression of the person that you created after meeting them a couple of times or even over a month or so, and then you get to know certain things about that person from people who have known them since years.
In a perfect world, you will stick by what you think of that person and try and make an image of them based on your interaction, but this world is not so perfect after all.. is it??
When I was younger, grade 9 may be, I had a group of friends. In comes a new guy, who hated me for his own reasons (it was mutual), he said somethings to all my so called friends in that group, and each and everyone of them stopped talking to me. 6 people. All gone in a jiffy for something I did not even know I did, and they in fact knew me longer than this new boy did.
(Just to make it clear they all did come around after some years, only then I was over the whole friends thing with them… just making clear.. nothing else)
I learned from that experience. I learned to not judge people based on hear say. But sometimes its hard to follow it. If you make new friends who have their old friends who are your friends too and these old friends have an opinion or facts or rumors about the new friends. What will you do? Put your guard up? Continue to learn them on your own? Believe what the old ones have to say? Seriously what will you do??
This question bothers me a lot. Because sometimes judging by what others say becomes really important….
So your own judgment or what people say?
3 comments:
Its a tough question! In my opinion everyone deserves a chance. If a person wants to start anew then they must be given a chance. I would not let myself be influenced by any person's old friend too much. That new person you met might have changed over time or may be trying to change. So learn for yourself what it is all about. But since you are friends with his old friends, you can keep talking to them and see if he is doing something similar to what he did in the past maybe? If it doesn't feel right then stop. But if there is no reason for you to believe that he might do something wrong then may be its wrong to form opinions based on what others say.
If I'd been asked this question 2 years ago, I would've said - "Your own judgement, ofcourse!". But I feel it has to be a combination of both. Sometimes, it is important to know a little bit of a person's past to understand them better, and there's no one better than to give you the real picture than his/her friends themselves. I feel that everyone in this world is colored by their own persepctives and experiences, so while one can't rely on what other people say completely,one must not ignore things they say either. Because, for whatever reason, this new person you have met, might be trying to protect himself/herself by projecting a whole different image of himself/herself to you and since you dont really know the person too well, you fall for it. So, in the end, the answer is, do listen to other people, consider what they have to say, look for patterns in the new friends behavior and then fall back on your own judgement.
I think both of you are right. It is stupid to not listen to anyone, but its even worse to just believe what they say.
So I think one's guard should always be up so that you can assess the situation acccordingly
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